Time To Pay Your Taxes, Slaves

As an expatriate PT (Permanent Tourist or Prior Taxpayer) I legally do not have to pay income taxes. Nearly a decade ago when I lived in Canada and complained about the socialist government and the taxes many brainwashed government lovers would tell me, “if you don’t like it, leave.”

I happily did and it’s been easily one of the best things I’ve ever done. Nothing feels so great as not having to track all your income and expenses and spending hours, days or weeks “filing” your taxes. So, each year around this time I get awakened from my own little bubble in paradise when I see a headline reminding the serfs that it is time to pay their due. This year in the US it is April 17th. In Canada it is April 30th.

SLAVE ON SLAVE ACTION

There is an old joke in Canada that comments on the socialist, slave nature of Canada versus the more entrepreneurial, capitalist nature of Americans. This joke doesn’t apply as much anymore as the US has sunk to Canadian levels… and the Canadians, almost miraculously, have possibly become more capitalistic in some ways now than Americans.

But, the joke as it used to be told was this. A man goes to a seafood shop to buy some crabs. There are two tanks full of crabs. One has a lid on it and the other doesn’t. The customer asks why there is only a lid on one of the tanks. The proprietor explains, the tank with the lid are American crabs. If you don’t put a lid on it they’ll all escape, he explains. And the other, the customer asks? Those are Canadian crabs. If one tries to escape the others will drag it back down with them.

This phenomenon, known as the “crab mentality” is now quite ubiquitous throughout the western world where public education and the government controlled media have made entrepreneurs and successful people out to be the bad guys. Just ask anyone in a drum circle at Occupy Wall Street.

I have dealt with this numerous times in my personal life growing up in Canada. When I first quit my job at a bank to start up an internet company (Stockhouse.com – still Canada’s largest financial website with more than a million users) I got surrounded by old ladies at the bank trying to talk me out of my decision.

“Are you crazy?” they’d say. “You have free dental if you work here!”

In the twenty years since I quit I estimate my total dental costs, especially because I’ve lived in Thailand and Mexico mostly since then, at about $400… mostly in cleanings at $10-25/each. Wow, was that ever a mistake!

And then, nearly ten years ago, when I bid a fond adieu to Canada, many of the local slaves questioned my sanity. “But, if you don’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in income tax you are giving up your ‘free’ medical care!”

For the record, my total medical care costs in those ten years is probably about $1,000. $100 per year.

This is the slave/crab mentality.

ESCAPE FROM THE WEST

If you can somehow arrange your affairs to make the majority of your income as a contractor or over the internet you can set yourself up to escape the tax game. These are topics we regularly speak about at TDV. Both ways to earn income in non-tax or low-tax countries and also how to get foreign residency and/or citizenship to legally emancipate yourself.

My mentor, Doug Casey, recently stated:

“What is a slave? He’s someone who is deprived by force of the fruits of his labor. Sound familiar? I disapprove of slavery, in any form – including its current form.”

Paying half of your income to government extortion is no different than slavery… unless you actually want to pay it. But, ask yourself, if you weren’t forced at the barrel of a gun to pay taxes, would you voluntarily submit a cheque every year?

Many countries, such as the Dominican Republic (DR), only tax you on income made in the country. So, if you derive no income from the Dominican Republic and you are a DR resident or citizen (something we help many achieve at TDVPassports.com) you can legally set yourself up to pay no taxes… unless you are one of the only truly globally enslaved people, a US citizen. In that case you can still not pay taxes on your first $90,000 (check with your tax slave consultant for details). But almost every other citizen on Earth will not have to pay any income tax. In Paraguay, another place we help emancipate people to, there is no income tax. They’ve been trying to implement it for a few years but the citizenry keeps fighting against it. What a country!

Many other places are also tax-free, like St. Kitts and Dominica. And others, such as Bulgaria, have a 10% flat tax. We can help you achieve status in all of these countries and we are scouring the world for other places… currently we are in Cambodia working on a fast-track residency and citizenship there through official channels.

GIVING UP US CITIZENSHIP

Many people, even some of my most libertarian and freedom minded friends still have trouble with the thought of giving up their US citizenship. This is how deep the brainwashing and belief in the past – when the US was one of the only places to really get ahead – run.

But, here is the way I see it. If we are right and the US continues to devolve into a horrific fascist police state for the foreseeable future then there won’t be the opportunities there like there were in the past. In that case, giving up your citizenship and becoming a citizen elsewhere has great benefit. And the only other thing that can occur, given the financial state of affairs in the US, is that the US Government defaults and instead of being nearly 50% of the US economy it recoils back to a very small government again. In that case, things like Homeland Security, the IRS and the hundreds of three letter agencies all disappear, meaning that the US would revert back to a similar state it was pre-Federal Reserve/Income tax. In this case, you won’t need a “green card” or to be a citizen to live and work in the geographical area known as the US. So, once again, US citizenship won’t be a limiting factor in taking advantage in the wealth of new opportunities in the region.

In either case, giving up your US citizenship is a win-win.

Of course, if you are not a US citizen you are not restricted to the same extent and there is no need to give up your passport… at least, until they devolve and become more like the US, taxing non-resident citizens on worldwide income. In that case, if you already have a second citizenship you can turn on your webcam, light your passport on fire and email the video to them and tell them good riddance.

I escaped years ago… and it is one of the best things I’ve ever done. You still have this option… but it won’t be long before western governments realize the “revenue” leakage they are losing by allowing their tax slaves to escape.

About Jeff Berwick:

Jeff Berwick, a self-described financial freedom fighter, is the founder of Canada’s largest financial website, Stockhouse.com. He now writes the libertarian, Austrian-economics based newsletter, The Dollar Vigilante and is a regular speaker at many of the world’s most important investment, resource and freedom-focused conferences where he is known as the most dangerous man in finance.